1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to a media system having preemptive media file extraction capability that may be used to reduce playback latency.
2. Related Art
Media systems may be capable of playing a wide range of different media file types. These media file types include, for example, various audio file formats as well as various video file formats. The media files may be streamed to the media system from the Internet, a subscriber network, or a local-area network. Some media systems are also capable of accessing media files from removable storage media such as, for example, audio CDs, video CDs, super audio CDs, audio DVDs, and video DVDs.
Media systems that are capable of reading media files from removable storage media may also include recording functions. The recording functions are used to transfer the media files from the removable storage media to a local primary storage device associated with the media system. The media files may be encoded to a different file format on the primary storage device.
When removable storage media is inserted into a media system having recording capability, the user may be presented with visual information through which media files may be selected for recording to the primary storage device. In some systems, recording of all selected media files must be completed before any of the media files can be played. From the standpoint of a user, the delay caused by the recording time may be unacceptable and reduce the perceived value of the media system.
Other systems may offer limited playback capability during the recording process. The limited playback systems, however, may experience unacceptable latency in the playback response. For example, if a user changes playback tracks of an audio CD during a concurrent playback/recording operation of a current track, it may take an undesirably long time for the system to access the new audio track on the CD, buffer an amount of the audio of the new track, and play the audio file. Therefore a need exists to reduce this delay.